War Truck in the Apocalypse

Chapter 14: An Idea for the Green-headed Fly

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation

Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

[Titan’s metal frame has Activity. There’s a correspondence between Expansion, Alloying, Exchanging, and other Activity characteristics with metal in a certain aspect. The speed of Alloying is very fast when it comes to metal objects, but it is very slow when it comes to non-metal objects.

[Earth-digging insect, large-toothed rat, and fanged wolf all have Activity, and their Activity cores show signs of turning into metal.

[Activity cores are formed from bones. Bones contain calcium, sodium, magnesium, iron, and other metallic elements. Among them, calcium takes the largest part, but all metallic elements are essential in animals and the human body.

[Activity seems to exist in the form of electromagnetic radiation, but at the same time, it seems to be radioactive. Aside from radon and astatine, most of the radioactive elements in nature are metallic. Radon is formed when radium decays, and when it decays, it forms the radioactive polonium. In the meantime, astatine contains metallic elements. It is formed when francium decays, and at the end, it decays into lead…]

This was the information from Shen Cong’s research, and he recorded it all in his word document. 

But the question just went back to the starting point. When he first encountered Activity, he already guessed that it was related to metal. 

After taking a huge turn, he seemed to have obtained a lot more information, but he still did not manage to come into contact with the true nature of Activity. 

Was the meteor shower related to Activity, and if it was, what sort of connection did they share?

He could not make heads or tails of it even through his research. 

Shen Cong resolutely pushed away those thoughts, because they seemed to have reached a deadend. 

He continued toying with his “lab rat”. ‘But I can be certain that even though its mutated characteristics are rather faint, this rabbit is still a mutated creature. But where is its Activity core?’

Shen Cong frowned and thought hard. 

The reason behind why he was in a hurry to find its Activity core was because he was not able to find his own Activity core. He wasn’t able to find Titan’s Activity core. 

This was the difference between him and mutated creatures like the earth-digging insect, large-toothed rat, and the fanged wolves. 

Logically speaking, humans were also animals. Aside from having developed brains, they were really not that different from wild beasts when it came to their essence. Then, if animals could obtain Activity cores after they were mutated, humans should be no exception. 

‘Should I dissect this rabbit and see whether it has an Activity core inside?’

This thought faded away as quickly as it came. In the end, Shen Cong did not cut up the rabbit. 

It had taken him quite a lot of effort to catch a living mutated monster. Before he wrung out all of its remaining value, he could not kill it. 

He thought for a while before typing out a string of words on his laptop. [Plastic rabbit: A mutated rabbit type creature. Its mutated characteristics are not clear. Its Activity core has not been discovered. It is carnivorous and has once ingested plastic. Further observation is required for its specific characteristics.]

Since he could not gain further understanding about the rabbit within a short period of time, Shen Cong shut the plastic rabbit into its cage and just set it aside. 

Then, he started guiding Activity to repair Titan once more. 

A week passed like that. 

He spent it in peace. There were no thunderstorms or sandstorms, and he did not encounter any mutated monsters. He did not notice any sign of other living creatures either. 

Every day, he spent six hours sleeping. 

Then, nine hours were used to repair Titan. 

Three hours after that were to study anything related to radios. 

Two more were for training his body and his slingshot skills. 

Another two hours were used to eat, read, watch movies, and for other things. 

One hour each day was used to survey his surroundings, while the last hour was used to research the plastic rabbit. 

Shen Cong’s work and rest was arranged in a very compact manner. His execution of his schedule was also on point. Even if he lived in the post-apocalyptic world, he still possessed great self-discipline. 

Titan’s repair had lasted for one and a half weeks, and its main structure and frame had completely recovered. Steel spikes stood once more on its external armor. If anyone looked at its surface, they would find that Titan’s armor had regained its streamlined design. It was now, once more, a post-apocalyptic war truck that was domineering and mighty, and it gave others an endless sense of safety. 

But in truth, Titan only looked powerful. Its internal electrical wiring system and electrical components were still not functioning. 

Shen Cong estimated that he would need four or five more days if he wanted to fully repair the dynamic system. 

Fortunately, he had replenished his supply of freshwater earlier, so he could be stationed in one place for a long period of time. 

He had already repaired his 15A radar, and it was spinning on the roof to survey all movement in the area. Shen Cong had also put on his Sky Lifting Pillar 1.0 a few times, brought his Activity pistol, handheld crossbow, fang dagger, and other equipment to cautiously go into the distance to perform inspections. The furthest he went was 1 km, but he still did not discover anything. 

While inspecting an area, Shen Cong placed three bear traps on the ground and used rotten fanged wolf meat as bait. 

The fanged wolf meat he could not finish had already rotted away, and Shen Cong stayed far away from rotten food. Aside from throwing them at the plastic rabbit to feed it, he dug a hole and buried the rest. Using them as bait was really just him making good use of waste. 

He was looking forward to whether he could replace the old meat with new meat. He wanted to capture other mutated monsters so that he could have fresh meat to eat. 

But Shen Cong was in for a disappointment. Aside from the plastic rabbit that was lured out by the Nutri-Express bottle, there seemed to be no sign of other mutated monsters in the area. Only a swarm of flies surrounded the rotten fanged wolf meat that served as bait. 

‘If cockroaches have already mutated, could these flies also be mutated monsters?’

Shen Cong captured a few of the flies with the intention of researching them, but to his disappointment, the flies were just normal flies. There was no Activity in them, so they were not mutated monsters. 

But this provided Shen Cong a useful piece of information—not all creatures had mutated. 

Then, he came up with an idea. ‘If I feed these flies with meat containing Activity, will it make them mutate?’

After thinking about this, Shen Cong immediately began conducting his research with great excitement. 

The Activity contained in the rotten fanged wolf meat was almost entirely gone. That was why he took a huge strip of large-toothed rat meat, which had not started rotting but was about to, and threw it into the mesh food cover containing the flies. It had five flies with green heads. 

Then, he did not pay attention to them anymore. Wanting to make his Activity stronger was already an incredibly difficult thing, much less causing something to mutate. Shen Cong had fed the plastic rabbit for a week, but the intensity of the Activity it released had become only slightly stronger. The effect was not clear. 

He had the same feeling from himself and from Titan. Increasing Activity was not something that could be done overnight. 

He needed a large amount of time to complete the change. 

*****

It was the 22nd of July. 

The apocalypse that arrived because of the meteor shower was on the 18th of May, which meant that it had started two months and four days ago. There was a huge limit to the Activity Shen Cong could get from his exchange with Titan and the mutated flesh he ate. The Activity in Titan was also still not enough for it to perform full Alloying. 

Activity had appeared abruptly with the apocalypse. Shen Cong did not know whether his control and absorption of it was fast or slow, since he had not met other survivors and had not exchanged any information with them. He did not have sufficient references either. 

But from the bottom of his heart, Shen Cong did not feel a lot of pressure in regards to the speed of his Activity’s growth. If he, who was part of the human race which was a species known for possessing superior intelligence, was still fumbling about at the edges of superficial knowledge, the monsters possessing low intellect and only moving based on their instincts could never hope to surpass his understanding toward Activity. 

On top of that, he had Titan. 

The large-toothed rat, fanged wolves, earth-digging insects, and plastic rabbit could not even hope to pose the slightest bit of threat to Titan. 

Even that monster that resembled a prehistoric crocodile had not managed to completely destroy Titan’s armor during the flood caused by the storm. Of course, that prehistoric crocodile-like monster had traumatized Shen Cong, but he was pretty certain that it was the mutated form of a normal crocodile. 

If a crocodile could turn into a gigantic creature like the prehistoric crocodile, then if an elephant mutated, wouldn’t it turn into a mammoth or a monster the level of a huge dinosaur?

An elephant weighed about three to five tons, while a mammoth was a creature that weighed twelve tons. If an elephant mutated into a creature at the level of a mammoth, while it would be difficult for it to send the thirty-ton Titan flying, if it truly decided to charge explosively, it could still knock Titan down. This was enough to pose as a threat to Titan. 

‘Thank goodness elephants are all in Yunnan and Southeast Asia. There are no elephants in Anhui… But there are quite a number of bulls, though, and Tongling has a tiger farm located in its northeast…’

Shen Cong was thinking a little too far ahead. 

He squashed down the thoughts that could be considered to be groundless worries and gave the plastic rabbit another piece of large-toothed rat meat before he cast aside his “lab rat” and the flies in a corner.

Then, he made lunch for himself—grilled large-toothed rat steak. 

The large-toothed rat’s meat was not smooth, and it had a rough texture, but it tasted pretty good. It reminded him a little of piglet meat. 

Once he finished eating lunch, he had one hour of resting time. Usually, he would spend that time watching movies, but on that day, he did not watch a movie. He turned on music and prepared to modify his weapons. 

The slingshot, handheld crossbow, bow, handgun, and high-pressure air gun were all Shen Cong’s strongest long-distance weapons. If it were necessary, he could also create improvised explosive devices. Shen Cong was also not lacking in close-distance weaponry, because he had a dagger, Sanleng thorn, metal fork, saber, axe, and nunchucks. 

He was confident in being able to suppress his opponent in terms of firepower. 

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But that was if he did not run into the prehistoric crocodile. The appearance of the prehistoric crocodile allowed Shen Cong to understand that he was still a little naive. The mutated animals’ control over Activity might not be as great as his, but their advantage in size was all too clear. Even though the chances of him running into such dangerous mutated monsters was rather low, there was no harm in him being prepared. Hence, he should upgrade his weapons. 

Cling, clang. 

A sack of Activity cores were poured on the floor. 

After Shen Cong was inspired by the fang dagger, he was certain that he needed Activity cores to upgrade his weapons. 

He had eleven wolf fangs, two large-toothed rat incisors, and a pair of chelicerae from the earth-digging insect.